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A bell ringing has me jolting, and nearly tripping over my feet. I snap my head up, and I’m not sure why I come to a sudden stop, or why I suddenly feel the urge to duck and run.
Prickles of awareness dance across the back of my neck, feeling like little gnats nipping at me.
My heart roars to a thunder in my ears, slow and steady, butloud.
Mouth dry, all I can do is stand there, frozen and staring as a man—an achingly familiar man—steps out of the diner. Of the place I was just headed to.
I’d laugh at the irony of it all, if I could. But instead, it’s taking everything in me to stay standing.
It’s as if Fate knew once I got to Vermont, I’d start doubting and stalling and chickening out, so it thought to give me no choice and throw him right in front of me.
I can hardly believe it.
But it’s him. It’shim.
Nolan Dresden in the flesh, some twenty feet away from me and three years older and no less detrimental to my health.
Clearly, if the way my pulse is trying to leap out of my throat is anything to go by.
Yep, definitely want to throw up now.
But I kind of also want to cry. Sink to my knees. Rush him and hug him and smack him and kiss him and—
A woman steps out after him holding the hand of a little girl with brown curly hair down to her mid-back, wearing a pink and yellow dress, and polka dot rain boots.
I blink a couple times, shaking my head, not quite sure I’m seeing things right when the little girl reaches for Nolan’s hand, and he looks down at her then up, and then the woman’s leaning forward and he’s pressing his lips to her cheek and—
I don’t understand.
I don’t…
He grins, his face half hidden in shadows, and the tug of his lip has something tugging loose in me—unraveling.
I stumble back a step.
He doesn’t hear me, or see me. He’s smiling and talking to the woman with blonde hair curled around her face.
As if from down a long, winding tunnel, I hear the little girl say, “Mommy!” loudly, before jumping in place, and twisting all about. Whatever else she says is lost—lost to that one word unraveling me from somewhere deep in my chest.
It’s a wonder I don’t crash to my knees, not with relief this time, but with realization.
This,I think.This is the real reason why he didn’t want to stay in touch.
This is why he was so adamant I’d move on, why he couldn’t even give me an answer when I asked if he felt it too.
Because even if he did…
Even if he did feel what I felt, there was still something—someone—holding him back.
I don’t realize I’m walking backward, moving away from the scene playing out in front of me in what feels like slow-motion…
Not until that little girl skipping around between them stops suddenly, whipping her upper body around, gaze finding mine immediately almost like she always knew I was there.
She doesn’t let go of her parents’ hands, but she ducks her head, smiling shyly my way, and I feel something just sort of…crack open inside me, unleashing what feels like liquid fire spreading through my veins, burning so hot, it momentarily numbs me.
She has his smile.
She has his eyes.
